Growth of data storage capacity and big data has far outpaced the rate of increase of data transmission bandwidth capable of transferring big data. The discrepancy is so great that transmitting big data from one storage facility to another storage facility can be prohibitively costly (e.g., requiring costly system upgrades) or lengthy (e.g., transmission taking months to years). Physically moving the storage media may leave the data on legacy hardware or may not be an available option (e.g., when the data was stored by a storage service on behalf of the customer). Some solutions have involved transferring the data to a portable storage device (e.g., network attached storage devices) and shipping the portable storage device to another storage facility where the data is transferred to another storage system.
However, when it comes to shipping, placing items into containers and labels onto the containers offers numerous opportunities for human mistakes that may prevent the correct item from being shipped to the correct destination. For example, the wrong item may be placed in a box or the wrong label may be placed on the box, causing a customer to receive the wrong item.
In particular, when an order is placed for an item, the item is fetched and a box for shipping the item selected. Sometimes items are boxed in an area with other items and human or other error may cause an item to be placed into a box that was not intended for the item. In another example, labels for shipping container may be printed and placed onto the containers. Again, human or other error may cause a label to be printed incorrectly or placed on a box that was not intended for the label. Furthermore, disposable shipping containers, such as cardboard shipping containers may not be the best use of resources as they are often only used once or a few times before being disposed.
Further, some such errors may happen either at a place of business that is fulfilling the order or at a customer site, for example, a customer site that is returning the item to the place of business where it was ordered.
While embodiments are described herein by way of example for several embodiments and illustrative drawings, those skilled in the art will recognize that embodiments are not limited to the embodiments or drawings described. It should be understood, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit embodiments to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope as defined by the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.